Far from being a productivity panacea, a collaborative culture will drive your top performers away.

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"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill

Related article I read a little while ago:
How Silicon Valley is Turning Itself into Detroit

This is one of the best articles I have read on the subject and mirrors exactly my 33 years experience in the space industry, both as a manager and as a worker - https://hbr.org/2009/05/why-teams-dont-work

https://hbr.org/2009/05/why-teams-dont-work

link now click-able


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GOP:

Gaslight
Obstruct
Project

And well worth clicking on.
Thanks garcia

-------------------------
"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill

Backs up my life time observations.

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I :heart; Q

LOL, I've been teaching a collaboration course for several years now, fully online. I STILL struggle with it, but because corporations demand this type of performance, I keep plugging away to make things as good as they can be even when they're dismal. Talk about not believing in your topic!

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[Feminism is] a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians. ~Pat Robertson

Still, all sorts of things need collaboration.  Architects like to think of themselves as getting the various participants to play with each other, while trying to make the outcome have a bit of character and utility.  

Everything needs some collaboration.
But with engineering anyway, there are known limits that are being ignored by managers.

One of the articles talks about team size, 6 being a good limit.
I've lead teams of 2-50, single digits seem about right.
Double digits significantly reduces productivity.

The stars can carry a small team and even elevate the performance of some of the others.
More than a few, you wear out and alienate the stars.

Collaborative offices can work too, if they stick to a size limit.
Single digit numbers of people in a room, or area.

-------------------------
"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill

They need to recognize that people are different. I spend more time with earplugs in (if I can't concentrate with music) than without, in my damn 16-person cube farm.

It's just way too easy to interrupt someone (who doesn't deal well with interruptions) when you can just walk right up without barriers like a door.

I don't know.  Well, actually I do.  I do prefer small teams, but having lead successful teams up to > 20 peeps of disparate disciplines, there are stories and lessons for all.  I'm sure those stories will continue as long as we are building things, which is not as common these days.  Innovation, yeah, a few really smart folks can really drive that.  Execution of those concepts however, can require you to make large teams work.  I enjoy sharing those successes, and i don't care for the individual  recognition that can be associated with it. That is one of the defintions of team.

I think there is a big difference between working on a team, especially with lot's of different discipline working together, and forcing a "collaborative" work environment on them.
The first is of course vital to producing anything, the second is a management fad driven largely by cost reductions and trendiness.


-------------------------
"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill